


Anthill

by orphan_account



Category: Top of the Lake
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:40:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few ugly scenes from the life of a boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anthill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storm_queen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_queen/gifts).



> yeah, sorry, I went a bit outside your recommendations. Jamie-centric. I kind of invented or glossed over some geography. hopefully this isn't too rough. Warnings for canon-typical nonexplicit sexual violence against children under the age of 16 (hence the M), self-harm. Hope you like. (I say, after that warning...) Happy Yuletide.

After the first time, he sat shivering on the bed, wiping spasmodically at his mouth. When the door clicked open and it was Detective Parker he fair fell forward on his knees, pathetic in his gratefulness. Detective Parker pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, dabbed at his face, at the blood, but he had a detachment about him. He sat Jamie back on the bed but didn't put a blanket round his shoulders or anything. He just looked, like he was considering, like he was a sheep working at a hard bit of cud, and Jamie's body tensed ahead of his brain.

"You can do two hours more," he said at last, and Jamie's brain caught up with the rest of him and he opened his mouth to scream and Parker put his gun in his mouth. Jammed it in, nicking where his lips met along the way, and the taste of it was different from other metal. Colder and sharper. Like blood, and at the back, the fire of cordite.

"Two hours more," Al Parker said, and the worst thing about it was that he was looking Jamie straight in the eye and there was nothing there. Not even amusement. "Perhaps three or four. The night is still young."

He pushed the gun a little back, scraping past his teeth and edging into his soft palate. Jamie refused to let himself gag.

"With a smile, Jamie boy," he said, which was what he said to any of the barista trainees when they fumbled his order. He pulled the gun out, wiped it across Jamie's bare chest before tucking it back into the holster. "Smile."

Jamie wanted to be sick. Would not. Could not. His belly was empty. He vaguely remembered vomiting earlier, held over an unfamiliar toilet by a strong hand, but where? When? Who had held him?

Al Parker shrugged. The door clicked behind him. Jamie should have - he couldn't get out, there were no windows, but he could have pounded at the walls, could have screamed. instead he dug his nails into his palms and squeezed his eyes shut. Rocked back and forth, as if that would change anything. Gnawed on the inside of his cheek, like he'd woken up in the middle of the night to bite back a nightmare.

The door clicked open, and it began again.

* * *

He recognized, sometime, in the blur of there-and-back, faces, faces that he knew, all from school, all from the boring days in the hot kitchen learning how to get the foam right on an espresso, and he realized what was going on, but, well. The nick at the side of his mouth, the scratch of the gun, that was taking forever to heal. His palms he hoped would hold their stigmata, so he could stretch his hands out for some sort of divine favor, or some sort of divine proof, but the skin there went pink and then white within days.

He could not meet their eyes, the rest of them. For their part they didn't look at him. He recognized the nick on lips and tongues, where the skin caught on the barrel.

They wouldn't talk. Wouldn't save him. And he paid them back in kind. Would not let there be kindness between them, an acknowledgement of their joint cowardice. Would not sit for seven hours a day staring at chalkboards and his own betrayal. Instead he walked at the riverflats down Mr. Mitcham's land, pulling picked-over dead fish from the shallows. He found a perfect dead sparrow at the lake and held it in his palms. It had dried out and was light as its feathers.

"Boy!"

Mr. Mitcham had a shotgun. Looked a hundred years old. He had it slung on his back, casual. Jamie dug his heels into the gravel of the lakeshore. The dizziness he felt before and after and kept him dim enough not to thrash and kick, that had a name attached to it. His mum had told him, one night, about what Mr. Mitcham did - she believed in honesty. Believed that the truth would keep him ending up like Johnno Mitcham, who had crept back into Laketop a few months ago, rail-thin and dead-eyed. 

"What the fuck you doing here?" Mr. Mitcham came down the ridge. "What you taking from my land, huh?"

Wiry, he was, possessed of a leopard movement fit for a man half his age. He pulled Jamie's hands apart and snorted at the little corpse. "You a fuckin housecat, boy?"

Jamie thought of backing up into the lake. Thought of bolting, up the hill, or just at Mr. Mitcham, so Mr. Mitcham would unspool the gun from his shoulders and force a frightened bullet through his skull. Make it stop.

But staying still had an attraction, like rocking and grinding his nails into his palms. Mr. Mitcham snorted again, but then he ran his fingertip down the bird's soft head. He pulled the gun off his shoulder and dropped it on the rocks. Jamie sat, and he did too.

"You like bones, do you?"

He laughed when Jamie blinked at him. "I see you in the woods all the time, boy. Morbid little fuckin gravedigger." Coughed. "I had a phase like that too when I was your age. See, you put a dead rabbit in a tub of water, leave it a few weeks, wash it out, you get a neat little party favor."

Jamie had never made his own corpses. He found whitebleached bones in the wood, or pulled them out of the rubbish heap after a chicken dinner. 

"Anthills." Mr. Mitcham spoke out at the lake, rather than at Jamie, and Jamie's muscles dropped a little of their tension. "What the water don't get, you put it under an anthill, and the ants do their work, and in a day or so, hey presto. Do that with my dogs still, if I know I'll miss'm terribly."

Mr. Mitcham collected dogs like people collected bottlecaps, Jamie knew. He imagined a row of sharp-toothed skulls lining a shelf in the opulence of Mr. Mitcham's mansion. He'd never been inside it but from the road, even, he could tell the plainness of the porch was deceptive. Anyone with eyes could see the cameras peeking out of the trees.

"Jamie, that's it," Mr. Mitcham said. He had to draw the name out, like he was pulling it from the back of his mind. "Work with your mum, I do."

My mum is a cleaner, he almost said. He hunched the words back. She cleaned houses in town. Maybe she cleaned Mr. Mitcham's place, but they didn't work together, did they? He imagined wiry old Mr. Mitcham running a rag down a bannister.

"You go to school with my daughter. Tui. You know her?"

Tui Mitcham had long straight black hair. They put her in his literature class, though she had to be at least two grades down. She never talked. Then again neither did he, when he bothered to go. He nodded and that seemed to delight him.

"She's a mad bitch, just like her old man. She's been thieving, did you know that? Thieving from the bloody chemist. Al bloody Parker's making me put her in his bloody coffeeshop." He sighed and picked up a stone, bounced it in his hand. Jamie watched it skip over the still lake.

"She's lonely," Mr. Mitcham said. "My fuckin fault, I keep her out here - she's got her dogs, her horse, but, God love her, that child hates anyone who isn't her mum. You ever talk to her?"

Jamie shook his head.

"You should talk to her," Mr. Mitcham said. "She likes being right. Your mum tells me you don't talk, so you can't argue with her. Who knows, she might like a little freak stealing bones from her father."

Jamie didn't know what to do with that. He still had the sparrow balanced carefully in his palm. He crossed his legs and brought his hands down to his lap. If he hunched and ran his thumb down the bird's sleek chest he could pretend it was sleeping.

Mr. Mitcham glanced over at him - caught his eye, but looked down at his hands before Jamie could wince and pull back.

"Boy," he said, almost kindly. "It's  _dead._ "

Jamie expected him to lay a gnarled hand on his shoulder, or on his hand, and tensed for the moment, but Mr. Mitcham got to his feet slowly and painfully. He gestured - Jamie picked up the gun and handed it to him, and he shouldered it. For a moment the clouds parted around the sun and Jamie could see what he had been, twenty, thirty years ago. 

"Ever want any bones, come see me. Still have too many lying around." He groaned, looking up at the ridge. "Help an old man out."

Jamie stood up. He slid the sparrow in his pocket and hooked his shoulder under Mr. Mitcham's arm. The touch did not bring up the usual revulsed shiver. They got up the hump of the riverbank and Mr. Mitcham backed off from him, didn't even land a friendly slap on his shoulderblades.

"It's a Wednesday and it's not half noon."

Jamie shrugged.

"You should be in school, you morbid little fuck," Mr. Mitcham said, and strode off towards the horizon. Jamie watched him go. He put his hand over his pocket, feeling the sad bulge of the sparrow, and turned back to town.

* * *

Worst thing was, if he bent out of the blur, he could see faces, and there would be something in those faces, a tilt of the brow, the way the eyes were shaped, and he would have an uncontrollable ugly pang of attraction and it would drive him down further into himself. He didn't dig his nails into his palm. He needed his hands, needed to flash YES and NO at his mother and hold hot cups of espresso under Al Parker's fetid eye. 

What he did not need:

the skin on his belly

the places behind his knees

the back of his neck, under his hair

If he chewed open a disposable razor and pulled out the little strips of soap to get at the blades he could mark himself up without anyone seeing. He redid the blond in the camper van's little bathroom and slapped the raw stripes with a hand wet with bleach. Made him feel better. Punishment for not saving anyone. Tui pushed his hair up and put plasters on him. He didn't talk to her, but he sat next to her in their one shared class, he walked with her to Mr. Zanic's house for dance classes. He followed her through the streams of Paradise and collected flowers. He would have gone to her house but Mr. Mitcham was there, and the sin of formless lust had centered itself along Mr. Mitcham in the sunshine. Much better to sit with Tui. Braid her hair. Compare bruises. She brought him bones, unasked.

"I could tell," she said; they were sprawled in the meadow, armed with cat skulls and chocolate bars. Jamie was trying in vain to braid hanks of grasses into ropes. He flashed both hands at her. YES and NO together meant a question.

"My brothers would kill'm."

That wasn't a guess. Luke wiry like his father, Mark with the bird engraved on his head, Johnno who had fattened up but was still lean and blank-eyed and hungry-looking; if Tui told, Al Parker's craggy face would be smoothed into a bloody pulp.

"But there's so-so many of them, is the problem." Tui could be frank - she had the honesty that the other baristas lacked. In the deepest depths of Paradise, she would speak candidly about her desire for knife-driven revenge. "And I don't know who they are. Do you?"

Jamie waved his NO palm.

"So they could come back to get us. And they know my dad because they keep feeding us the  _stuff_."

Luke and Mark made the  _stuff_ too, but Tui focused the blame for it on her father. Fair enough, Jamie supposed.

"My dad would murder them all too," she allowed. "But he makes a lot of money selling the  _stuff_. Perhaps he'd be mad at me."

If Jamie proved all of his mother's employers were murderers, if he put all of them in jail and pitched the key into the lake, she'd curl up on the ratty sofa in the main house with the bottle of gin she kept promising to throw out. _No_ _money, no money, oh God, Jamie, why did you do that?_

Tui sat up and screamed. She pitched the cat skull as hard as she could - it didn't go far but it caught the roll of the hill and toppled away. She spasmed like a toddler and screamed, "I hate them, I hate them, I hate them," screamed out to the silent uncaring hills. 

YES, he showed, and he curled his fingers up into a fist and released them, again and again, like a heartbeat. YES, YES, YES.

* * *

Tui left but she had texted him earlier, where she was going, how to find her. Texted a few other baristas as well. They didn't look at each other as they piled into canoes, but after a bit they cheered up. Her distraction, that'd keep Al Parker busy enough. He couldn't  _arrange_ things. 

Jamie opened his throat - he'd done well at the barista course, in despite of himself. He knew how to organize things, bones in his room, his schedule for sneaking out of the house. Everyone had a task and it all boiled down to the same.  _Help Tui._ He was near the oldest, almost six months into fifteen, and the shock of him talking was enough to make people listen. He could  _arrange_ things and Al Parker couldn't. Joy shocked up his spine.

"He's going to die," Tui said. Of late, it was hard to tell who she was talking about, Al Parker or her dad who'd dismissed her pregnancy with his typical snort. Jamie thought it wise to keep his still-there, still-putrid attraction under wraps. He flashed his hands, YES, NO, tilted his head. Who? _  
_

"Al Parker." She considered. "And my dad. That way all of it'll stop. They can't get the _stuff_ anymore if he's gone."

"But your brothers," he said. He'd talk to Tui, for her baby's sake. He'd heard hearing human noises was good for babies.

"My brothers don't do anything if my dad's not 'round to tell them," she said.

But she was wrong. Jamie was the last to get the canoe in and the night had come down fast. He fished in his pocket for the little torch, or at least the light of his mobile phone. A branch cracked and he turned to see Johnno Mitcham staring.

Johnno had Matt's ranginess but none of his charisma. He was clumsy, and, like Tui, too frank, even just with a look. Jamie had never been this close to him before. He wore old ragged jeans and no jacket over his long-sleeved T-shirt. "Where is she?"

Jamie showed his NO palm.

"I'll tell your mum," Johnno said, but that came out weak and cracked, lacking the power of a real adult. Johnno must still be scared of prison and wary of authorities. He rubbed his eyes. "Jamie, is this some kind of - is, is, is she playing house with you? I won't get mad if you are, I promise - "

Jamie made his fist pound like a heart. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.

"No," Johnno said, quietly, "yeah, no, that doesn't make sense. Sorry." He had the same sigh as his father. "I'll walk you back to your mum's."

At the block of, Johnno stopped - he fished a wallet from his jeans pocket and pulled out three bills. One twenty, one fifty, one hundred. 

"For Tui," he said. "I know you're bringing her food. Get her something nice, yeah?"

Jamie had a nasty flash, lying stunned on the bed, dull pain building to a sharpness, vision blurring, watching bills flutter hand to hand.

"Please." Johnno's voice cracked again. "I can't - Jamie, I can't help her. You'll have to help her - "

He cried. Jamie watched him cry for a moment, then leaned over and plucked the money from his fingers. Made sure he did't touch the fingers themselves but Johnno lurched forward like a tree falling and hugged him tight. "Thank you, thank you, Jamie, thank you - "

Jamie unpeeled from him and ran inside. Johnno Mitcham had the same body as his father in the sunlight of years past but the brush of skin against skin brought his belly to his throat. He managed to reach the washroom in time.

He'd cleaned up well, so he thought, and gone back to the caravan, but his mother was there, sat on his bed. Had his sketchbooks open on her lap. When he drew it was either bonesketches or things he wanted. Bodies, male, no hands, faces absent any features that would poke through the haze, demonstrably naked. The older ones had once had genitalia but after the first time he'd gone through with an eraser so hard that the pages had ripped.

"Oh, baby," she said. Held out her arms. He pushed himself against the bones pinned up on the wall and stared at her. "Oh, love, that's why you've been so - lately. I'm sorry."

He bore her hug but, for once, when he nudged her out the door, she left. He lay on his bed among his strungup bones and rubbed his arms to get the feel of touching gone.

* * *

Al Parker touched him but it was frustrated angry hitting so it was fine. He didn't care. Let him be frustrated. 

"I hope you're losing all your money," he mouthed.

Al Parker probably didn't hear that. Swatted him again. _Tea's up, tea's up -_

The lady detective came in and shouted at Al Parker, and then she took Jamie home.

Jamie went into the closet and found the last bit of wrapping paper from last year's Christmas. Silly to have candy canes and Santa Clauses but he didn't think he could just hand over the box. Earrings. He'd bought them in Queenstown with Johnno Mitcham's money. For Tui's birthday. She wanted something else too and he'd get it day of. 

He had a handprint from Al Parker on his face. He stuck his tongue out in the mirror at it. 

* * *

 "Yeah?"

Jamie's throat locked. He'd done the roundabout, kilometres-long walk, starting before the sun rose, circling the Mitchams' property, finding the break in fencing by the river, so he could find Mr. Mitcham and tell him a secret, but finding Mr. Mitcham broke his concentration. Mr. Mitcham wasn't wearing a shirt, his shoulders were red distant from the cold, and the sun had crept out from behind the filmy clouds.  "Not here for bones, are you, boy?"

"Invite him to my birthday party so I can shove him off the rock," Tui said.

NO, Jamie flashed.

"Well?" Mr. Mitcham had a shirt slung out on the porch; he picked it up and put it on. Buttoned one, two, three, four, more, and Jamie locked on him. The disappearance of flesh. "Well, boy? Anything to say?"

Touch-fear and the idol in the early sunlight clashed. One overpowered. Mr. Mitcham wasn't stiff, or unyielding, just wiry and gamy and warm, and he smelled of aftershave and the wood, and the fabric of his shirt brushed against Jamie's lips, and Jamie felt all right, for a moment.

"Right," Mr. Mitcham said - he'd had his arms down by his side but he'd brought them up and Jamie could sense him about to touch. Pat him on the back. (Grab his throat and stick something horrible in it.) "You're a good boy, I suppose. Tell your mum, she raised a sweet kid."

Jamie let him go and bent his head up, so Mr. Mitcham wouldn't bother to lay hands on him. Mr. Mitcham was looking at him, expectant, more than a little bewildered.

"Tui doesn't miss you," he said.

The boy had run half a kilometer away before Matt drew out of himself. Follow him, obviously. Follow that strange fuckin bone-collector freak of a lad, and they'd find Tui, no problem.

"Mad bitch," he said, fondly, to the open and uncaring air.

He went inside to rouse the search party.


End file.
